News in review 4/12

Gun battles just north of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa marred what was to be the start of a cease-fire in the country’s civil war on Sunday, according to Al Jazeera. The fighting between forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Houthi rebels killed more than 20, per reports from residents.

Even so, Saudi forces, which have been bombing the Houthis for over a year, have agreed to abide by the U.N.-brokered cease-fire. The ceasefire is the fourth since March of last year, when the Saudi bombardment of Yemen began, and was to act as a preface to upcoming peace talks in Kuwait.

Two rounds of negotiations last year failed to end hostilities in a war that has killed over 6,200. Though these new negotiations are set for next week, the Houthis have yet to inform the U.N. of their terms for a long-lasting cease-fire.

The war began last February after Houthi rebels stormed the capital of Sanaa, driving President Hadi out. Both groups, however, remain opposed to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to the BBC.

NATIONAL

Kentucky Gov. sued by own attorney general over education cuts

Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin was sued Monday by his Democratic attorney general, Andy Beshear, over cuts Bevin made to the state’s higher education system, according to Time Magazine.

The cuts in question were part of a larger plan to cut $650 million in spending over the next two years. In turn, the money saved would go toward Kentucky’s estimated $30 billion in public pension debt. However, when the state legislature rejected part of the plan, which amounted to a 4.5 percent cut to state university budgets, Bevin went ahead with the cuts anyway.

Last week, Beshear gave Bevin one week to undo the order, but the governor ignored him.

LOCAL

New state voting law leaves nonpartisan voters without voice in some races

Nonpartisan voters may be out of luck this November as a new state law governing the way one-party elections are handled goes into effect, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Before this year, races that only had candidates from a single party, which happens most often in state-level races, were decided in the general (if there were more than two candidates, the top two vote-getting candidates would move on to the general). Now, these races will be decided during the June primaries instead, and the winners there go on as the de facto winners of the election come November.

Because Nevada’s primaries are closed, meaning only those registered with the Democrats or Republicans can participate in their respective primary, the tens of thousands of nonpartisan voters in addition to some partisans will be left without a voice come November.

The RJ found that in Senate District 4, the all-Democrat ballot leaves roughly 19,000 nonpartisans and Republicans out of the picture. In the Republican Assembly districts 13, 19 and 26, some 60,000 nonpartisans and Democrats will be left out.

Jacob Solis can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @TheSagebrush.